Let’s get weird today and talk about game reviews, McMansions, and pop art.

Stephen Totilo of Kotaku reflects on Bethesda Softworks’ decision to hold back review copies of their games until a day before release. A decade ago, this move would have been business suicide, but nowadays, with many gamers making purchasing decisions based on information gleaned directly from YouTubers, Bethesda can afford to do something like this. One might argue that games journalists are being self-serving in their outrage here. But Kotaku has already been blacklisted by Bethesda, so Totilo is free to speak his mind, and I trust him on this. Bethesda is trying to control the messaging on their products to an unprecedented degree, and to be frank, there is no way to spin such a restriction of information as a win for consumers.